Stacked fractions 1

[EddieOM]

What happen to MicroStation's stacked fractions of "yesteryear" in V8? The stacked fractions come out worse than AutoCAD 2000! They were fine in SE. Is there a secret I am missing? I was working in a *.dwg file brought directly into V8.

 

[DaveVikingPE]

Welcome to V8.

Well, there's a button for stacked fractions, but it doesn't seem to do much, does it?

 

[EddieOM]

You got that right!

 

[DaveVikingPE]

Well, since I brought all my problems up to the attention of the big boss, V8.1 has been installed...

Let's see how stacked fractions does,

From the "Help" menu:

Stacked Fractions "...Causes numeric characters in the text window that are separated by a slash (/) to be placed in the model as single characters with the numerator over the denominator:"

OK, BUT

It doesn't tell you that you have to select the fraction-to-be-stacked and then click the little button, now does it?

 

[EddieOM]

Right -- but after you do that -- look at the ridiculous result. Evidently in MicroStation's attempt to create the look and feel of AutoCAD, they really bungled the stacked fractions. AutoCAD's stacked fractions (Rel 2000 and up) actually work better! MicroStation's stacked fractions since Ver. 2 or 3(the first versions I used) and up to SE were perfect. You remember all you had to do was hit the space bar, type X/X, hit the space again, and presto, a perfect stacked fraction.

 

[DaveVikingPE]

We'll just have to wait for V8.2, won't we...

 

[EddieOM]

I learned something today that may help:

Go to the Element pull down menu, open Text Styles, select Font, click the Advanced tab, scroll down to the bottom and find Fractions, click in the Value column and a check mark should appear which is to signify that MicroStation's traditional stacked fractions are turned on for that font. You may have to try this for several fonts because not every font supports the traditional stacked fraction. Then this should allow you to create stacked fractions by hitting the space bar, type X/X, hit the space bar again, and hopefully, you will have a perfect stacked fraction.

I don't know if this method is limited to *.dgn files. Have to try it in *.dwg files to see if it will work there as well.

Fun, eh?

 

[DaveVikingPE]

Nice...

Man, I hate programs where you have to turn on/off all sorts of "hidden" crap before the damn thing works intuitively.

 

[EddieOM]

They didn't make it very obvious at all, and just try finding this information in the help files! Another CAD operator showed this 10 step method to me!